How do I design my vegetable garden layout?

As a general rule, put tall veggies toward the back of the bed, mid-sized ones in the middle, and smaller plants in the front or as a border. Consider adding pollinator plants to attract beneficial insects that can not only help you get a better harvest, but will also prey on garden pests.

What is the most common garden layout for growing vegetables?

The most basic garden plan consists of a design with straight, long rows running north to south orientation. A north to south direction will ensure that the garden gets the best sun exposure and air circulation. A garden that runs east to west tends to get too shaded from the crops growing in the preceding row.

What is the basic pattern in garden design?

Grid lines drawn at 45 degrees can be used as a guideline to design the garden. Rectangular themes are the most popular and widely used. They are adapted to give a formal look to the garden. Long or narrow gardens can be easily divided into even sections using this particular theme.

What vegetables grow best together?

Which Vegetables Grow Well Together? Vegetable Companion Plant Don't Plant Together Onions Beets, carrots, Swiss chard, lettuce, peppers All beans and peas Peas Beans, carrots, corn, cucumbers, radish, turnip Garlic, onions Potatoes Beans, corn, peas Tomatoes Squash Corn, melons, pumpkins None 11 more rows Jun 26, 2021

How do you make a good garden plot?

Plant Your Plot Make sure to include walkways that will provide access to all parts of the garden for watering, and rows that are no more than four feet wide so you can reach everything in the row. Planning the timing of when your plants will go in is also important if you're growing plants that are time-sensitive.

How do you make a garden grid?

A popular method involves placing stakes or screws at one foot intervals around your bed and using tomato twine to act as the visual divider. This method is especially useful if you plan on removing the grid later on in the growing season.

How do you start a garden plot?

You first need to decide what you want to grow and pick a location. Plan out the garden beds and buy some gardening tools. You should also test the soil to make sure it is suitable for the plants you intend to grow and prepare the soil with some nutrients and fertilizer. Plant carefully, water properly, and enjoy.

What should a vegetable garden look like?

Fitting a raised bed garden in a small backyard The traditional vegetable beds are 4×4 or 4×8 feet, sometimes hard to fit into a small backyard. But don't let this discourage you. Make the raised beds as narrow, long, or short as you need. Many veggies can thrive in 1, 2, or 3-foot-wide raised beds with no problems.

Should you plant in rows or blocks?

Plant in Blocks, Not Rows Traditionally vegetable gardens are planted in straight rows with room between to walk. This layout requires season-long hoeing to keep the rows free of weeds. A better idea, especially on a small plot, is to plant in blocks with the same spacing in all directions.

What is the best orientation for vegetable beds?

Aspect and orientation - most fruit, vegetables and cut flowers need full sun, so position beds in the south- or west-facing parts of your garden, away from the shade of overhanging trees. Run long beds north to south for even sunlight levels.

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (2024)

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (1)

To properly be able to plan your dream garden on paper, you’ll need to draw a garden layout. Here are my simple tips for how I do it and all you need is a measuring tape, art tools, and paper. This method helps you to create a to-scale design of your garden so that you can properly plan your growing space. Full video introduction included.

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Why Drawing a Garden Layout is Important

The back garden is currently a grassy lawn, shrubs, a greenhouse, and some beautiful little fruit trees. It sounds like a lot already, but to a veggie gardener like me, it’s a blank slate. I’ve been dreaming about what will be growing there and have already jumped the gun and purchased a new garden arch. I planned to put it in last weekend but then realized I wasn’t sure where to place it. I’d not even figured out where my garden beds were going.

I also realized that I had no idea how big the garden was or how many four-foot-wide beds I could get in it. Never mind everything else. I needed to take measurements and draw everything out to help me design my new garden. I need a to-scale garden plan in order to plan out the sizes and placement of raised beds, the arbor, and new plants. Without one, garden planning is just guesswork.

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (3)

Garden Organization Ideas

How to Organize your garden using the Konmari Method
The Best Seed Organizer (the product that I use)
Organize a Seed Swap to Share and Get Seeds for Free
Deep Clean the Greenhouse with Eco-friendly Products

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (4)

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (5)

Measuring the Garden Layout to Scale

Creating a to-scale garden plan begins with measuring everything in the garden. The lengths, widths, diagonals, and distances between certain objects. If you have access to an open reel measuring tape this will be easy. I didn’t and used an ordinary measuring tape, but I think it worked fine. As far as units are concerned, I chose to use feet. However, if most of your available landscaping materials are in meters, then you might want to use metric.

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (6)

I roughly sketched out the garden and the measurements on a pad of paper — it took about half an hour in total. Looking at it afterward, it was clear that my initial mental model of its size was all wrong. Seeing the numbers put it into perspective.

Drawing a To-Scale Garden Layou

Professional landscapers create beautiful garden plans to present to clients. They’re often illustrated with specific plants and trees and use a 1:50 scale. I’m not selling to anyone other than myself, so a simple garden plan is all I need. I figure that many home gardeners would feel the same.

Many people use a 1 cm equating to 1 metre scale. This is a scale of 1:100

Landscapers would use a drafting table to do their designing. I have a kitchen table and ordinary printer paper to draw on. That meant that the scale I used would depend on how much I could fit on the sheet. I took the width of my garden, just over 33 feet, and found that I could fit it on the paper using 3/16″ to represent every foot. I’m terrible with math, so it was trial and error with working it out on my ruler.

How to Draw a Garden Layout for the Vegetable Garden • Lovely Greens (7)

Using basic math, I worked out that 1 inch in real life would equate to 5.33 feet or 64 inches. That makes my to-scale drawing 1:64. Meaning that my drawing is 64 times smaller than my garden truly is. You can choose whatever scale best fits your paper and needs.

Filling in the Details

After I’d created an outline, I filled in the permanent structures, such as the gate, greenhouse, and trees. The shrubs I plan to remove are absent from my final plan. All I used were simple art tools such as a ruler, pencil, eraser, and some colored pens. You can see my thought process in the video below.

Drawing a simple garden plan was a huge help in creating an accurate vegetable garden design. I could see that four long beds could fit, that there was plenty of space for a shed at the back, and where to place my garden arch. Knowing all this gave me the confidence to order roses for the arch and begin thinking about what plants and veg were going where. I’ve also kept a lot of the features I’m planning in pencil since it gives me the flexibility to change things if needed. I hope that my little exercise in amateur garden design will help you create a no-fuss, simple garden plan for yourself.